


Smile Like You Mean It

by GigiHudson (velvetiia)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drinking, M/M, Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 22:23:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvetiia/pseuds/GigiHudson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles moves away to college, desperate to try and start fresh. No more being the awkward one who only gets second glances because He's The One Who's Mom Died. No more falling in love with stupid werewolves who don't care. No more being the outsider. But sometimes things can get broken, and the only way to fix them is to return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by "Smile Like You Mean It" by The Killers. Enjoy, and check out my other Teen Wolf works if you liked this!

Stiles’ mom died and that was the end of it. He stopped being Stiles so much. He didn’t laugh and joke with his dad, he couldn’t sit and talk with his mom anymore, he didn’t run around the yard anymore, making up fantasy worlds in his mind whilst his mom watched from the kitchen and his dad laid out in the sun. That was gone. He was still Stiles on the outside though; but not really, not to anyone that knew him.

Nights were spent with him in his room on the computer, shut off from the rest of the world whilst his dad ate meal-for-ones in front of the tv, occasionally closing his eyes so he just wouldn’t have to see how alone they had both become.

Of course he still made snaky comments, still joked around, and still played the class clown, but it was just a façade, just to cover up the fact that he rarely smiled because he was happy. Not anymore.

Then came summer. And that stupid time, right at the start, that his dad told him to go out. To hang out with his friends. “Hell, do anything, just get out of your bedroom, out of this house.” So he did. He went with Scott to the stupid party that Jackson was having in the woods, the stupid party that Scott had to go to because Allison was there and Jackson would be there too, and Scott could be so dumb sometimes that he didn’t realise that Jackson didn’t give a fuck about going after Allison because it was Lydia he wanted.

Even more reason for him not to go.

But he still did, and when Jackson started making out with Lydia, tangling his hands in her long, strawberry blonde hair, and Scott disappeared with Allison, he grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the floor and took a swig before walking off.

He wandered through the bushes slowly, already half drunk. He tripped over a tree root at one point, and his face landed flat in the soft dirt. He gave up on walking then. He was far enough away from everyone that the music was a distant background noise, and he still had 3/4s of the bottle left.

He dragged himself into a small shelter, between a huge tree and a fallen one, almost cozy from the moss that covered strips of the broken tree.

He drew his knees up to his chin, resting his eyes for a second and wrapping his arms around his freezing cold, denim clad legs. He let his eyes drift shut, only snapping them open when he almost let the bottle slide from his grip. He took a large gulp, letting it burn his throat on the way down, revelling in even that feeling. It had been so long since he’d felt anything but numb.

He kept drinking, gulp after gulp. Hours must have passed, and it was almost pitch black. Through his drunken haze it occurred to him that he should probably make his way back to the others, that he didn’t know this forest as well as he should have, and he struggled to his feet just in time for the rain to begin falling.

Small drops at first, nothing too much. But soon it was falling thick and fast, and he couldn’t even see where he was going, stumbling through the overgrowth under his feet. The rain was an iron curtain around him. He was cold to the bone in minutes, his thin red hoodie and blue tartan shirt soaked.

He was too drunk to really know what to do though, except that being out in the rain right now? Yeah, it wasn't a great idea. But suddenly he was slammed against a tree, the rough bark hard against his skin, and a pair of glowing blue eyes were inches away from his.

Even drunk, he was pretty sure something was wrong here.

And then he realised that the eyes were attached to a face, which had a body. A very nice body from what little his numb skin could feel. But this guy, and it was a guy, was warm. So he stopped trying to wriggle away, and looked straight at the eyes.

"What the hell are you doing wandering around my property?" Stiles could focus a little more now, though the man's features were still blurry, a combined result of copious amounts of alcohol and the rain. Only it wasn't a man like he'd first though, this was more of a guy. But his voice was still pretty deep, and it was doing things to Stiles that even in his drunken state, he was still pretty surprised at.

"I- uh- haha, wow, um- see I'm ya know, drunk. That's what parties are aha, for right? Yeah- um, aha." Suddenly the guy stepped backwards, a confused look on his face. The confusion quickly faded away to disgust though.

"You're drunk."

The way he said it made it sound liek an accusation, and Stiles frowned. Somehow, he felt like he needed to defend his actions.  
"Well it is a party...not that I wanted to be here..." He was sobering up now, the combination of being slammed up against a tree, and drenched in freezing cold water for hours. He tried to lift his arm up, aiming for his mouth with the bottle, but the guy wrenched it out of his grasp and flung it into the forest.

Stiles' eyes widened, and he let out a slurred curse.  
"What the hell man?" Suddenly the eyes were in front of him again, so close he could count the other mans eyelashes. He could feel his body heat again, even though they weren't touching.  
His mouth was right there too, and as Stiles traced it with his eyes, he realised the other man could see him. Flushing in his embarrassment, he tried to think of something.

"Who are you anyway? Do you usually run around the woods at night?" The question was the first thing that he could think of, because it seemed important, though he didn't know why. Then it dawned on him... "Unless...did Scott send you to make sure I'm ok? Or did Jackson huh? As some weird, punishment for the whole Lydia thing? Fuck, that guy is an asshole." Stiles tried to shove the guy away from him, his long fingers splaying out on his chest as he pushed. He didn't move.

"My name is Derek Hale, and it's my property you're on." Stiles lifted his gaze from the admittedly chiseled torso to Derek's face. The blue eyes had disappeared, replaced by hazel ones. He felt the faintest stirrings of lust as he gazed at the hard lines of Derek's face.

"You need to get home." His voice was softer now, less harsh than it had been before. His face was still in an inscrutable mask though, which made Stiles itch to know what he was thinking.  
"Easy for you to say, your dad isn't the sheriff." Derek mouth opened slightly at that, his eyes staring at Stiles with a mixture of pity and realisation.  
"You're the one whose-" Stiles cut him off before he could speak, the words coming out angrily. "Yeah, the one whose mom died. That's me." He exhaled and bit his lip, staring off into the black forest and trying to stop the tumult of tears that were building in his eyes.  
"Stiles." The words were almost a whisper, so quiet he almost didn't hear them. He looked back at Derek.

"How did you-?" He leaned forwards without realising it, and slipped on the wet moss. Strong hands caught him round his waist and he found himself once more pressed up against Derek Hale. Surprise flitted though Derek's eyes, and what, for a second, could have been lust. And then it was gone again, and Stiles was just staring aimlessly at Derek as though he held all the answers in the universe. He leaned forward ever so slightly, before catching the scent of vodka.

He opened his mouth, the words coming to him slowly. "You're drunk too." The words weren't an accusation, and they were softer than they should have been. He made them sound sad too, forlorn. Derek closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them they looked as though they were filled with anguish. "I have a reason to be." He whispered the words, but Stiles still heard them. And then he remembered; Derek Hale, the sole survivor of his family. Three had made it out of the house fire that had destroyed his family, but now one of them was dead and his uncle was in a mental hospital.

It dawned on him suddenly that here was the only other person in Beacon Hills who knew just how he felt.

He matched Derek's stare this time, lifting his gaze from his mouth to his glowing hazel eyes. And then he leaned forward again, pressing his lips against Derek's.


	2. Chapter 2

I’d been at college for almost a year when I decided to pay Dad a visit. He’d come up to see me a few times, but I’d never visited Beacon Hills. I told myself it was because I didn’t want to try the long drive, which was probably fraught with terrible perils (running out of Cheetos for the drive snack, the radio signal going weird). I ignored the fact that I’d done longer drives, and had been fine. 

It wasn’t really the drive that bothered me. 

Here I was though, and more than a little uncomfortable. I’d always been Awkward Stiles in Beacon Hills, a title that was sadly well earnt, but at college it had been different. I’d still been a nerd, (duh, college isn’t a magic quick fix for geekdom), but I hadn’t been uncomfortable in my own skin, awkward and out of place the whole time. I had been in Beacon Hills. 

I’d had Scott, but that didn’t really work. I was still the outsider, not really friends with anyone but Scott, and yet he was friends with everyone. From the lacrosse team that didn’t even know I played for them, to Allison and all of her friends. Even Jackson and him had come to a kind of truce between them. Scott was just never on the outside, only the fringes. But he didn’t see it like that, didn’t realise. 

But it didn’t matter, because I was here now. I’d missed Dad too much to stay away for too long, and my apartment for college just didn’t smell right, even after I’d lived in it for the last few months. 

Which is why, as I dropped my bags down on the bed, I inhaled deeply through my nose. The scent of the forest came in through the open window, but that was nothing new. The woodsy smell of pines had permeated the whole house, for as long as I could remember, and it was more of a comfort than anything. And behind it all, buried underneath the fresh cotton smell of my bed covers, and the familiar, yet faint, smell of my old aftershave, was that smell. 

His scent. 

I didn’t know how I could still smell it; I wasn’t a werewolf like Scott, just some plain ass human, (with a wonderfully quirky side that had the ability to melt even the coldest of heart, no really), and it had been more than a year. Probably more like two. But it was still there. 

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry or laugh. Maybe both. In the end, I settled for laying back on my bed, my eyes wide open as they stared at the familiar ceiling, still covered in glow-in-the-dark stars that I’d stuck up there back when I was afraid of the dark, and Mom had decided to kick me out of her bed once and for all.

8 year old Stiles was pretty similar in weight to 18 year old Stiles, though not as tall yet, so Mom had lifted me up while I stuck them all over the ceiling and laughed about the monsters that couldn’t get me now. 

In the end, it wasn’t even me that had needed protecting from the monsters; it had been Mom. She died 3 months after I stuck the stars up there, and for all my crying and preying and begging, the stars didn’t help her find her way home at all.


End file.
